The following papers are revised versions of papers read at the "Seminar on Daniel C. Dennett,Breaking the Spell," hosted by the Laboratory on Theories of Religion, Core Area ResearchProject on Religion, Cognition and Culture, May 23,2006, Faculty of Theology, University ofAarhus, Denmark.

The papers are under review for publication in Method & Theory in the Study of Religion,submitted July 9,2006. Please do not quote

"How Not to Do the Cognitive Science of Religion Today: A Reading of Daniel Dennett," byArmin W. Geertz

"Dangerous Ideas: the Spell of Breaking the Spell," by Lars Albinus

"Full of Sound and Fury: The Media Response to Dennett," by Gretchen Koch

Dangerous Ideas: the Spell of Breaking the SpeW

Lars AlbinusUniversity of Aarhus, Denmark

1. IntroductionIn this article I aim to present, and critically comment on, the outlines of Dennett's naturaltheory of religion. Drawing on the Darwinian theory of natural selection, Dennett argues thatreligious ideas are like parasites in the human brain and advantageous only to their ownsurvival. He is aware that religious people may be offended by what may be experienced asundue scientific reduction of their beliefs, but he deems it more important to understandreligion from the firm ground of scientific investigation than to show unconditional respectfor other people's religious feelings. Philosophically Dennett is a professed materialist andopposes Cartesian dualism by formulating a cognitive theory of mind that dispenses with thenotion of consciousness as a central unity. Likewise, he wishes to demystify the notion ofGod and 'the belief in belief by explaining religion from the point of view of Dawkin'stheory of memes. The classical problem of self-reference, however, and the ungroundedattempt to argue for a moral standing on these premises are the main topic for discussion inthis article, which also critically assesses Dennett's notions of science and religion. Thus, thepresent article provides a perspective from the sidelines of the philosophy of science andshould be taken as such. This means that since I have no special knowledge of socio-biological theories, there may be some misgivings in my presentation. However, I doubt thatthey will be grave enough to completely undermine the point of my critical remarks.

2. The meme-theory in basic termsDaniel Dennett is an acclaimed philosopher of mind, dealing especially with evolutionarybiology and cognitive science. In his book from 1992, Consciousnesss Explained, he hasfamously argued that human consciousness, including the notion of free will, can beunderstood in terms of a 'multiple drafts model' which doesn't include the level of self-conscious decision-making (1992: 111-138). In other words, what we are used to think ofourselves and our conscious actions are reducible to physical processes working behind thescenes, as it were. The notion of the 'I' is a cover name for the construct of interacting mentalprocesses at a deeper level. The 'I' has no simple irreducible reality of its own. In a later bookfrom 1995, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Dennett launched another provocative thesis, namelythat the scope of Darwin's groundbreaking story of evolution is not restricted to developmentof the species, but may explain the evolution of human culture as well. In this respect,

I This article is a revised version of a paper read at the "Seminar on Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking theSpell", hosted by the Laboratory on Theories of Religion, Research Project on Religion, Cognition andCulture, May 23, 2006, University of Aarhus, Denmark.

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Dennett drew heavily on the British sociobiologist, Richard Dawkins, and his theory of'memes', that is, memorable entities or traits which spread in the culture analogous to thetransmission of DNA-information through the genes (c£ Dawkins 1976). Our biological outfit,as well as our cultural inheritance, are the result of a natural selection. Again the notion ofconsciousness is under attack in so far as the transmission of memes is not dependent onintentional choices. When we hum a tune, we don't even have to like it. We simply cannotkeep it out of heads. It replicates itsel~ according to its ownproperties.2 Moreover, memes are

not just catchy tunes or phrases or jokes or the like, but also the very ideas that make up themental design of what we are. In Dennett's words: "The haven all memes depend on reachingis the human mind, but a human mind is itself an artefact created when memes restructure ahuman brain in order to make it a better habitat for memes" (1995, 365).

Hence, what is more natural for Dennett than to turn these insights into breaking evenmore spells as, in his latest book, the self-delusion of religious belief? Of course, this book,

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, which came out earlier this year, hastherefore already gained a reputation as Dennett's new groundbreaking and provocative study.

Indeed, provocative it is, in more than one sense, but let us not get ahead of ourselves. Wewill begin with trying to understand Dennett's position as a philosopher.

3. Philosophical materialism and the notion of religionAs a student ofthe Oxford philosopher, Gilbert Ryle, Dennett was, at the outset, interested inworking out a theory of the mind that did away with 'the ghost in the machine', the Cartesiannotion of a soul considered as a reality of its own apart :£romthe body it inhabited. What isalso called Cartesian dualism ran into the problem of explaining the connection between bodyand soul, and Descartes' own suggestion, namely that the pineal gland (epiphysis) was locusfor the interaction between soul and body, has indeed long since been discredited (Dennett,1992: 34). In Dennett's eyes the only tenable consequence is to advocate a kind of material-ism that regards everything in natural terms. In order to understand the mind, we have tounderstand how it works as part of the workings of nature. In this respect, he even consideredhimself a true heir ofWittgenstein in so far as Wittgenstein himself warned against the notionof consciousness, or more precisely: against the intuitive notion of mental states and processeswhich leaves the question oftheir nature undecided (Dennett, 1992: 462; cf. Wittgenstein, PI,§ 308). We will return to this matter later on. For now, let us say that Dennett, following thedog's tail, as it were, works his way :£rom demystifying the illusion of consciousness todemystifying the illusion of belief in God. Here, the theory of natural selection, and inparticular, the notion of memes, comes into the picture. Religious ideas are like parasitesfeeding on the host, in this case, the human brain, in order to survive and multiply. This is, inshort, his natural theory of religion. As a working defmition he understands religion to be

2 As Dawkins puts it: "a cultural trait may have evolved in the way it has simply because it isadvantageous to itself," 1976: 214.

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"social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whoseapproval is to be sought" (2006, 9), and this is a defmition which, of course, allows him tograft the theory of meme-transmission rather easily onto religion. The hierarchy of conceptsin this defmition is very important. The constitutive notion is not 'belief, but 'social system'.In this respect Dennett draws a line between a Darwinian theory of socio-biological evolution,on the one hand, and a mind-oriented cognitive approach on the other. Although he hailscontributions ITom Wilson, Atran, Boyer and others as important, he explicitly works ITom

another angle himself. What is important is not so much to understand the evolutionarydevelopment of brain structures or cognitive dispositions in the mind as to understand thedevelopment of culture. What makes cultural information survive ITom generation to genera-tion? What makes people believe so strongly in supernatural agents and a promised afterlifethat they are willing to offer their own lives defending it? Religious ideas such as these cannotbe said to benefit the individual. Dennett therefore asks the cui bono-question (2006: 56): whoor what do these ideas benefit? The answer is simply: the religious idea, e.g., the notion ofGod, benefits its own survival. It can be a dangerous idea seen ITom the perspective of the

host, but the trick of the parasite is exactly to blind the host ITomrealizing this. It is like an antwhich tries to climb a straw of grass. The attempt fails, but this does not prevent the antITomtrying again and again. Why? Because a tiny worm-like parasite, a lancet fluke (dicroceliumdendriticum), has entered its brain ordering the host to climb the straw. Its purpose is for theparasite to enhance its chance of entering the stomach of a ruminant, thus securing further

survival and multiplication (2006: 3-5).Dennett acknowledges that in suggesting this natural explanation of religion as a socio-

biological system of meme-transmission he will provoke hostile responses ITom religiouspeople who ask science to reITain ITomtrespassing into the realm of their beliefs. Indeed it hasto be noted that he speaks in an American context in which respect for other people's beliefsplays a very important political role. Religious rhetoric is perhaps generally more prominentin the United States than in Europe, and responses to Dennett's suggestions may therefore bemore sensitive than we would expect ITom a European point of view. However, Dennett is notblind to the possible benefits of religion to those who believe. He is aware that he may takesomething valuable ITompeople who seek comfort and meaning ITom a religious tradition in aworld or a life situation that would otherwise be hard to bear. By weighing pro et contra,however, he came to the conclusion that religion is too dangerous a force to be left unques-tioned. His project is therefore also a moral and political one. In the name of science he arguesfor an obligation to learn as much as possible of a phenomenon that may otherwise thrivedangerously well in the shadows. Although he himself admits to sacred values of democracy,justice, love, life and truth, he fmds it even more important to keep an open mind, notreITaining ITom questioning any idea whatsoever (this being identical to the value of truth - or

rather a certain concept oftruth).

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Be that as it may, let us turn to the premises of this questioning. On what ground does

Dennett set out to question the ideas that culture is made of? The ground, of course, is science.But then again, what does Dennett understand by science, that is, rea~ reliable and justifiable

science? It seems that every theory which is able to account for itself according to empiricalfacts satisfies the basic conditions of science. As a philosopher, he is interested in understand-ing how these [mdings, these facts organised and explained by theory, are also in principlepossible (2006: 374). Concerning meme-theory, however, the dog seems to bite its own tail.

Dennett has a revealing remark in his Appendix A: "The zoologist Richard Dawkins coinedthe term 'meme' in a chapter of his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, and the term has caught on"(2006: 345). Does this mean that the term 'meme' stands for an empirical fact? Not neces-sarily, the term has simply caught on. It works. And how are we to know whether it works? Isit because it is true or just because it is successful as a meme? The point is, we cannot knowbased on the premises of a natural theory of selection alone. Is this a problem? Not neces-sarily. If theory built around the notion ofthe meme leads to fruitful insights, then, of course,

we may use it, realizing that this will be a story alongside other possible stories. But sciencehas lived with realizing exactly that for centuries, and science is still about getting fmances,educating students, and so on, and that's it. The problem, however, is that Dennett speaks onbehalf of the truth. He has no problem admitting that. Indeed, he must speak the truth if hisaim is to convince others than those who already think like him, and he explicitly states thathe addresses religious people, people who will be better off, if they realized the truth. He isnot going to take their ceremonies or religious values from them, he just wants them to

acknowledge that what the religious ideas do to them is having them believe in an ultimatetruth that simply does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. And if we ask, 'Why then do all thesepeople around the world, perhaps even a majority, believe in supernatural agents, even offer-ing their lives for their approval?' the answer is, 'Because certain virus-like parasites haveinvaded their brains, thus overtaking control of their feelings - and even more importantly

their basic commitments.'

4. Naturalizing a moral standingDennett's political agenda is to put basic commitments back in the right place, that is, thecommitment to a free and democratic society in which dialogue is based on reasoned argu-ment and scientific knowledge. This is a sympathetic idea, I think, but where does it comefrom? It is not deducible from the perspective of Dennett's own resources of scientific know-

ledge, that is, an empirically explainable world of natural phenomena. In this world we arehosting blind mechanisms, or rather, we are the result of mechanisms that work behind theimagined level of a free will. But how can Dennett want to work for a better world, if thisworld, for good or for bad, is a world of natural selection developing according to its ownrules? Where does the moral choice stem from? Dennett's answer is obvious, and it is a veryold answer. The moral choice stems from knowledge. When the veil of self-delusion is

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removed £fom our eyes, when we see the world as it really is, we are at least in a betterposition to make the right choices than we were before. This is what provided enlightenmentthinkers with optimism. This is what made positivism a moral enterprise in the name ofneutral science. However, thinkers in the tradition of political philosophy have warned usagain and again that moral convictions do not guarantee themselves, they are not just there asa natural resource, they have to be justified, and the only way to do so is to admit that reasonsfor morally informed actions are to be developed £fomtheir own resources, that is, on theirown level. When Dawkins warned us against the blind workings of nature (1976: 215), andDennett warns us against misplaced respect for other's religious feelings, they both appeal toan act of decision, an act of willing, that they both have excluded £fomthe scientific model ofunderstanding what we are. The repressed notion, as Derrida might have put it, returns to takeits revenge by determining the discourse that brought it to silence in the first place. The notionof £feewill creeps in uncomfortably, but unavoidably, in a scientific discourse that threw thebaby out with the bathwater.

The other possible consequence, however, is much worse. If Dennett holds on to hisposition and consistently denies the workings of £fee will and rational choice, appealingmerely to the convincing force of a better story, that is, a scientific story of meme-replication,then he has no argument left for rationally preferring his story over against the religious one.'Yes, I have,' Dennett may reply, 'since my story can be checked, whereas theirs cannot.'However, this checking only works on the grounds of a notion of truth based on the belief in areality out there which can be reconstructed as it really is by science. But then it is not just agood story, rather it is a representation of reality itself that convinces us as rational beings,not as victims of a relative meme-invented kind of rationality, which is, in the end, notrationality at all. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

5. Notions of religion and scienceThe problem with Dennett's book is that it assumes notions of science and religion that areway too narrow. Actually, the materialistic notion of science becomes a spell in itself.Although Dennett invites a multidisciplinary approach, he discards the old distinctionbetween Naturwissenschaft and Geisteswissenschaft (2006: 71; 372f). He may be right indoing so, but still his distinction is too simplistic, for it does not mean that hermeneutics canbe cast aside. Today, hermeneutics represents a way of understanding who we are on the levelof self-understanding, that is, a dialogical understanding that does not try to work its way intoother people's minds, but rather seeks understanding in the medium of intersubjectivity andintertextuality.

Dennett may be right to warn against misplaced respect. We can agree that nothing has aprivileged right to be exempt £fomscientific investigation. But this should not exempt us fromasking ourselves: what limits to our ways of asking do we have to respect in order to actuallylearn something about the object of investigation? Ifthe subject matter is religion, it may be

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hopelessly inadequate to reconstruct necessary conditions for having religious ideas, if theseconditions are far from being sufficient. Dennett may certainly argue that evolutionarybiology has, at least potentially, the proper resources at hand to provide us with sufficientconditions. However, I am inclined to doubt it, and the burden of proof is on his hands,anyway. It may well be that socio-biological theory catches relevant traits in the spreading ofreligious infections, as it were, but what about religious ethics and philosophy of religionwhich are committed to reasoned argument, what about the complex interrelation betweenideas, myths and ritual practices? Is it possible for a whole system of actions and beliefs toreplicate itself parallel to the competition of singular elements? Perhaps it is, but thereremains a huge amount of proofto be produced in order to show this convincingly.

Anyway, what is the background of this preoccupation with religious ideas and notions ofGod that are salient in Dennett's book? Do they qualify for all instances of what we normallystudy as religion? Dennett seems to have missed the ongoing debate about the very notion ofreligion as a Christian term.3 Dennett may not care, since he is obviously not interested in adialogue with the professional study ofreligio~ let alone theology. Who is he talking to, then,apart from those that share his views beforehand? He tries to convince the general public, so itseems, that they have to learn more about religion, not just from the point of view of variousscientific disciplines, but first and foremost from the point of view of a theory of naturalselection. This theory, however, cannot possibly stand alone, for if it could, it would take theword right out of its own mouth. It would have no independent criteria of truth left, and let usnot forget, Dennett is above all else a disciple of truth. Yet, in order to be able to judge thetruth of meme theory, the premises by which we discern 'true' from 'false' will have to beother than the premises of the meme theory itself Otherwise, the theory is merely self-protective and cannot be falsified.

In respect of his concern for scientific truth, Dennett can no longer claim to be a supporterof Wittgenstein's basic ideas. For Wittgenstein, the possibility of judging statements to betrue or false rests on a ground that cannot itself be true or false (On Certainty § 205; § 253).Our statements are always embedded in forms of life that are simply given. As languagegames, they occupy different roles in our lives. Granted: Some of the fundamentalists thatDennett has in mind may very well think that their vision of God as well as God's revealedcommandments belong to a reality concordant with the physical world, and people of thisconviction may indeed feel that Dennett is trying to break the spell of their vision, but canreligion really be boiled down to such visions? I doubt it. Wittgenstein may at least have beenpartly right to stress that religious statements do not refer at all, they play the role of meaning-making in certain situations; they create images for a life to be lived. Dennett himself is notfar from admitting exactly that, but still he has an almost iconoclastic drive to tear down theseimages, standing on the firm ground of a materialist conviction. On these premises, no dia-

3 See, for instance, the discussion in Jonathan Z. Smith 1988, T. Fitzgerald 1997 and R.T.McCutcheon 2003.

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logue is possible, since people can only shout at each other from each side of an unbridgeablegap. By reducing all language games to the game of natural selection, Dennett simply exchan-ges one spell with another. Bound by the spell of scientistic ontology that only honours cul-ture in order to dissolve it into the blind mechanisms of nature, he speaks from a point of viewthat allows no room for rational discussion.

6. A note about nature and languageIn his book, Consciousness Explained, Dennett responds to the charge of behaviourism byendorsing an answer Wittgenstein gave to the same question (PI § 307; § 308). It runs asfollows: if the question about human behaviour is seen to explain away the notion of mentalstates and processes, it has to be noted that when we talk about such states and processes and,at the same time, leave their nature undecided, we may believe that a methodologicallyassured understanding is going to make up for that later on. But then the conjuring trick hasalready been made (§ 308).

From this point of view, Dennett's reading entails an unwarranted notion of consciousness.Therefore, to use Wittgenstein's own words, we have "to deny the yet uncomprehendedprocess in the yet unexplored medium" (ibid.), and Dennett continues: "As 308 makes clear,if we are to avoid the conjuring trick, we have to figure out the 'nature' of mental states andprocesses first" (1992: 462). In § 309 Wittgenstein describes the goal of philosophy as toshow the fly out ofthe bottle, and Dennett's way of doing this is to come to grips with mentalprocesses as natural processes that can be explained without referring to objects of conscious-ness and the notion of consciousness as a central unity in the mind. Whatever the merits ofthis scientific enterprise, it is a rather strained way of understanding Wittgenstein. WhatWittgenstein strives to do in the subsequent discussions is to explain what 'pain', 'thinking'and 'meaning' are, not according to conscious experience, but according to utterances of'pain', 'thinking' and 'meaning' (§ 310 and onwards). There may indeed be naturalistic ele-ments in Wittgenstein's thinking as when he talks about instincts as pertaining to forms of life,but it is a mistake to take his reflections as aiming at a scientific theory, let alone a naturaltheory of religion. The later Wittgenstein saw the philosophy of consciousness as a spell oflanguage that makes us blind to the workings of language itself. Using the notion of 'languagegames' he tried to show that 'objects of consciousness' are not independent entities, but ratherpoint to a way of using words. Various language games make up the design of our beliefs andthey may criss-cross in many ways, but this is indeed not to say that the game of scientificexplanations and, I might add, of religious belief, can be reduced to one another.4 Talkingabout psychology at the end of Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein concludes that:"The existence of the experimental methods makes us think that we have the means of solving

4 See, for instance, Wittgenstein 1970: 57.

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the problems which trouble us; though problem and method pass one another by" (PI, XIV).5

In other words, for Wittgenstein the use of language has to be solved first, lest naturalexplanations shall cast yet another spell. We may even go so far as to say that the belief inscience, that is, hard, experimental science, contrary to the 'belief in belief, is itself a branchof subject-object dualism by taking as its point of departure a notion of observable reality thatis ignorant of the form of life that make such a notion practically possible in the fust place.One of the main contributions of Wittgenstein's pragmatic insights may very well be that the

ground on which we judge statements to be true or false (as in science) cannot itself be true orfalse (On Certainty § 205; § 253), since agreement on what is true and false is an agreementin language; that is, not an agreement in opinions but in forms of life (PI § 241). In thisrespect it makes no great difference whether we refer to opinions as the contents of conscious-ness or to processes below the level of self-understanding, since it is the very reference toindependent objects (be they 'real' thoughts or 'real' processes) beyond the realm of languagethat has to be abandoned. In § 308 Wittgenstein admits ''that it looks as if we had denied

mental processes", adding: "[a]nd naturally we don't want to deny them". In the same vein wecan say that naturally he may not want to deny the possibility and results of science. What heis interested in is to understand how language works, to show the fly out of the bottle, andcertainly not to naturalize everything we talk about, entrapping the fly once again in the bottleof nature, as it were. Dennett admits that his understanding of Wittgenstein departed frommany of his fellow students in Oxford (since by his lights they missed the point), so he hasgiven up 'being' a Wittgensteinian. This is perhaps wise enough. By my lights, Wittgenstein

and Dennett seem to pass one another by.

7. The problem of verificationIn Consciousness Explained Dennett professes to be a sort of verificationist, namely in theWittgensteinian sense that ''wheels which play no part in the mechanism" have no explana-tory sense, and therefore, according to Dennett, have to be denied (1992, 461). The wheels inquestion are 'objects of consciousness' or consciousness as a central unity. Scientifically we

should stick to empirical phenomena which have an explanatory status, that is, phenomenawhich can be accounted for, empirically and theoretically. However, agreement or disagree-ment in this form of verificationism turns on the notion of theory. Dennett does not seem toendorse the positivist hard core verificationism which does not allow for theoretical h¥pothe-ses, since they can never be verified, but at best exemplified. The question is whetherDennett's theory-oriented kind of verification ism, allowing for explanatory models ofahypo-

thetical nature (as, for instance, the multiple drafts model), still goes with the meme-theory.Here, the facts are not, of course, the memes by themselves, but ideas, sounds, signs, and soforth, which are interpreted as memes, i.e., as mental entities (not necessarily conscious),

5 For a discussion of Wittgenstein's rejection of scientific psychology, see Williams 1999: 240-259.

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transmitted and multiplied through the workings of natural selection. In this respect, it may beimportant take notice of the fact that Dennett admits to an act of interpretation in the socio-biological enterprises (2006: 261f). Memes do not simplypresent themselves to us as memes.The crux of the matter is that religious ideas, among others, do not have to be interpreted asreflections of conscious meaning-making, telling us who and what we are, but can beexplained as natural entities living a life oftheir own. However, we are very far ftom any kindof verificationism in this respect. It is not that empirical knowledge will never be able toverify the theory of memes (which can at best be plausible), but that the very perspective canbe turned on its head. Seen ftom the point of view of language games, exchanging reasonedarguments in support of a certain belief, for instance, it may very well be the selectivemechanisms of replication which are the superfluous wheels. It does not mean that they arenot at work, however, only that they are not important for understanding what an exchange ofarguments amounts to. In fact, Dennett has to acknowledge this, or else he has given up anyreason for convincing us that the theory of natural selection can provide us with true know-ledge. In order to acknowledge the interpretation of scientific results, however speculativethey may be, we will have to trust the premises of true and false, that is, given the premises ofthe scientific theory, it can turn out to be wrong. Either the meme-theory can in principleprove unjustified, thereby committing itself to criteria of rational judgment which are notalready accounted for by the theory itself, or the meme-theory is by its own standards merelya meme-product and thus involved in a vicious circle (petitio principii). By admitting anautonomous level of rational understanding, that is, an irreducible level of intersubjectivity,the meme-theory may save itself ftom such errors. The question is whether it is willing toacknowledge that.

It is not clear in any case, whether Dennett's criteria of verificationism, which are not, bythe way, repeated in Breaking the Spell, holds good for the theory of memes. It goes withoutsaying that the idea of God as a real being is not empirically verifiable, only the fact that suchan idea exists. The question is whether it is reasonable, or grammatically relevant, to use aWittgensteinian phrase, to treat this idea only as a meme. The ontological level of meaning-making as an intersubjective activity seems to fall out of the picture. And make no mistakeabout it. It does indeed exist.

8. A sidestep into political philosophyThe grande finale of Dennett's book turns into moral and political considerations. There is alot of intriguing stuff to reflect on in this part of the book, but I venture to say that these issuesinvite discussions within (and perhaps even better served in) thediscipline of political philo-sophy, in which no names, by the way, are mentioned. How come? Because philosophers ofpolitical science reflect on how people's rights can be rationally defended, how an opendebate is to be secured by institutional networks that in the best possible way make up a

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democratic society.6 This cannot be done by referring to a naturalistic understanding of the

mind, let alone of culture. Dennett is left with no argument for the right decision, the rationaldefendable choice, since the only possible choice is the 'choice' ofthe better meme, which isno choice at all. How can it make it a moral task to defend the Darwinian theory ofevolution?7 Why does Dennett feel a moral obligation to spread the word of evolution, if allthere is to his moral habitus stems from the workings of nature which cannot, of course, bemoral in itself? According to Dennett, memes are spread according to their own criteria of

success; they do not need a moral defense, and if the moral defense is just a meme, then itcannot be morally valid in any philosophical sense, that is, as part of deontology. Dennettactually faces this question, posing it himself: "What foundation, then, can we stand on as westruggle to keep our feet in the meme-storm in which we are engulfed? If replicative mightdoes not make right, what is to be the eternal ideal relative to which 'we' will judge the value

of memes?" And his answer is:We should note that the memes for normative concepts - for ought and good and truth and

beauty - are among the most entrenched denizens of our minds. Among the memes thatconstitute us, they playa central role. Our existence as us, as what we as thinkers are - notas what we as organisms are - is not independent of these memes (ibid.).

Granted that this be so, however, why is it then that religious ideas which may seem equallyentrenched denizens of many people's minds, are potentially dangerous? To a great manypeople, religious belief may represent or express exactly what 'ought', 'good', 'truth' and'beauty' is. How come that some basic memes are beneficial to us whereas others are not? It

does not make things any clearer that, on the one hand, Dennett speaks about what we are asdependent on memes, and, on the other, what we are as hosts, that is, as human beings apartfrom the memes which inhabit our minds. Why do some ideas constitute our mental existencewhereas others only seem to endanger our mental welfare (even at suicidal risk) by beingadvantageous only to themselves? It is indeed interesting to take notice of the fact thatDarwin's theory of natural selection can also be taken to support the beneficial function of

6 Take, for instance, the discussions in Multiculturalism (edited by A. Gutmann 1994), by Taylor,Habermas, Appiah, Rockefeller, Walzer and Wolf, see also, more substantially, Habermas, 1992; 2005;Rawls, 2005; Walzer, 2005.

7 He actually states this explicitly - even in a religious key - on page 268: "This is my reason forwanting people to understand and accept evolutionary theory: I believe that their salvation may dependon it! [... ] So I feel a moral imperative to spread the word of evolution, but evolution is not myreligion. I don't have a religion." Why is Dennett using a religious rhetoric here? Something similar isfound in Dawkins, e.g., 1976: 215. Maybe, it is because they guess this kind of language might catchon, mimetically, so that they contribute to transposing a set of values from a context of religiousmission to a context of Darwinism which is not, obviously, regarded as a religion. Still, Dennettacknowledges that also scientists "campaign with vigor and ingenuity for their pet theories", thedifference being that "they are constrained by the rules of science not to engage in practices that wouldtend to disable the critical faculties of potential hosts for the memes they want to spread" (2006: 365).However, if the critical faculty is itself designed by memes, which Dennett seems inclined to think(1995: 365), we are still in the grips of a natural theory that cannot at the same time be a theory ofnature. The ground, on which true and false statements are made, cannot itself be true or false.

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religious ideas, as, for instance, the idea (and practice) of forgiveness (Wilson, 2002: 189-215). One easily gets the impression, hopefully unjustified, that Dennett's and Dawkin'shostility against religion precedes their application of meme-theory to this field of investiga-tion, producing results which are unduly biased.

However, what is lacking in Dennett's theory of natural selection are basic criteria fordefming what it is that makes us special as human beings (1995: 265). "What makes usspecial," Dennett actually says, "is that we, alone among species, can rise above the impera-tive of our genes - thanks to the lifting cranes of our memes" (ibid.). But this is not a verysatisfying answer, in so far as memes, although they express themselves in cultural forms, arepart of the same selective mechanisms as are genes. And we have not come any closer tocriteria for trusting that the 'right' and 'good' ideas may be victorious in the battle against the'bad' ones. A battle, or a competition, it seems, is all there is, and all there can be, accordingto the theory of natural selection. In this Nietzschean vein, morality must give way to thesurvival of the fittest, it is as simple as that.

9. ConclusionAs scientists we should not commit ourselves to any untimely respect towards the feelings ofreligious people, and maybe Dennett is right that many of them, let alone the entire humanrace, would in fact be better off not believing in a dangerously zealous and commanding God,but the spell-breaking proceedings of natural science may not be the only way, nor even anadequate way, of disenchantment in this regard. Proceeding from the self-understanding ofour own values, including various scientific enterprises, we may actually show quite anotherand very relevant kind of respect in taking people's beliefs seriously as beliefs, that is, under-standing their internal coherence, their symbolic structure, their ways of self-reflection intheological traditions. This is also part of science, albeit a human science. This is certainly notto say that every belief has to be respected or credited as rational on its own accounts, quitethe contrary, and I am not arguing that we should want to exclude contributions fromcognitive, neural or socio-biological sciences. However, since the fall of metaphysics weshould give up the dream of fmding one closed set of criteria that enable us to own the wholepackage of truth. Such a dream will probably always turn out to be a dream, and people willbe right to turn it down as such, choosing their own traditional stories instead. Let's try to putthe theory of natural selection in its proper place. It is a theory, neither verifiable, norfalsifiable, but at best a plausible theory, a good guess, that may point to eye-openingmechanisms in the way in which certain ideas, including religious ones, transmit themselvesthrough the medium of the culturally adapted brain. It cannot sufficiently explain culture, letalone religion, it cannot even explain itself as a theory. If you really think it can, if you areconvinced of its all-encompassing truth, it has simply succeeded in becoming a newspellbinder, and then it will become just another dangerous idea just like those it tries to put tothe test.

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